Kids in the Hall: Unmasked!

Three members of Kids in the Hall sat down for an interview this afternoon for the upcoming season of Unmasked on XM satellite radio. Well, they didn’t stay seated, or in one place, for long. Scott Thompson, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald made the live audience at Comix forget for a couple of hours that the Pope also was in New York City today, as the trio bounded around the stage, tangling in each other’s microphone cords, throwing water on each other, and generally give XM host Ron Bennington little room to ask a question. Out of control. But in a funny way. "It’s like having the f***ing (Three) Stooges on stage here!" As Thompson and McDonald mock-fought/rolled around on the floor, Foley quipped: "You’re really going to want to check out the video podcast for this." And after Thompson accidentally spilled his water on his pants, he said: "I bet this will sound great on the radio!"

The guys took the train down from Boston, and for reasons not made entirely clear, Foley acknowledged he’d only gotten an hour of sleep. He gulped down three cups of coffee during the interview.

Bennington let the audience get involved with more questions than usual, and the guys got the audience more involved than they were expecting, with a few of them invited onstage for impromptu antics.

We did learn a few things. McDonald said the guys always have been a group, with none really more popular than the others. Lorne Michaels indeed gave them their big TV break, although he first hired only Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch to write for Saturday Night Live before deciding to give all the Kids their own show. McDonald suggested that the Kurt Vonnegut book, Slapstick, might explain the key to their success, implying that each of the Kids is an idiot as an individual, but together, they are geniuses. "So maybe that’s us," he said. Though these guys improvised throughout the XM interview, their tour and previous sketches aren’t scripted that way.

The Kids in the Hall play the Nokia Theatre in Times Square tonight and Saturday. They’ll be on the road across North America through June. Buy tickets here!

Related: I got to see them debut much of this tour last summer in Montreal. Also, New York magazine asked Dave Foley some questions and printed his replies. And Jane Borden from Time Out NY chatted it up with the fellas.

Another interview!

A Quick Word With Kids In The Hall – Now on tour!

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

View all posts by Sean L. McCarthy →